IN THE ENEMY CAMP

From the author of Fire Storm (1978) and Brimstone (1980)--a well-done tale of political intrigue, betrayal, and assassination set in oil-rich Indonesia. Here, the moral hero is American Ambassador Charles Clements, the man whose assignment is to present an unruffled profile to the Indonesian government and to promote its stability in order to protect US interests. But Lang, his closest aide, and Houghton, a CIA operative, are killed by Sangre, a masterful political assassin, because they knew of a plot to massacre the ASEAN countries' oil ministers at their meeting in Bangkok. In his attempt to break the back of this conspiracy, Clements himself becomes an assassination target--and learns he's expendable not only to his Chino-Indonesian lover but to his old university friend, American oil tycoon, G.D. Majors, who's heading up his own conspiracy for smaller Western oil companies. There's a highly suspenseful manhunt on Majors' Bangkok estate--where Clements outwits and kills Sangre, then goes on to prevent the massacre of the oil ministers--as well as the discovery of yet another conspiracy (this time, Russian-engineered) behind the first conspiracy. Oil, money, and power versus the value of human life lie at the heart of this capable and sophisticated novel, giving it a moral dimension and substance which place it well above the level of the ordinary thriller.